


Luck is no substitute for a good plan

by KittenKnife (dark_pookha)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Community: HPFT, F/F, Superheroes, Supervillains, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:27:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24075166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dark_pookha/pseuds/KittenKnife
Summary: Felicia Felix, also known as Lucky Clover, has a dark past. She joins the All-American Angels under false pretenses to further her plan of revenge. Ultra will pay for what he did to her parents.





	Luck is no substitute for a good plan

Act 1

“Next,” Witchcraft said with weariness in her voice.

A young woman, maybe a teenager, Felicia wasn’t sure, went into the circle.

“Name?” Witchcraft levitated a stylus over her tablet.

“Lumineera,” the woman said from behind her light-blonde bangs.

“What are your powers?” Computrix asked.

“I focus light,” the woman said, but so quietly it was almost inaudible.

“Sorry?” Lady Justice shifted in her chair and her scales rattled on the table.

The woman stood up straighter, and spoke louder. “I focus light.”

“Show us,” Computrix said in their cold, clipped voice.

Lumineera raised her hands and the overhead lights dimmed as her skin started glowing brighter and brighter until she was painful to look at. Suddenly, she pointed at a wall. A focussed beam of light shot out from her hand and scored a dark black line on it. She produced balls of light and flung them at various members of the All-American Angels. None of them did any damage as far as Felicia could see, but they were definitely dazzling.

She unzipped her loose jumpsuit and let it drop. She became painful to look at. Suddenly, she dissolved into a burst of light and disappeared. A second later, there was a glow under the door and she reformed from the other side of it, slowly oozing out from the small crack under the door.

Her glowing form walked back to her jumpsuit, put it on and then went back to the circle.

“Interesting,” Computrix said. “Must you disrobe to teleport like that?”

Lumineera nodded and then lowered her head shyly. She just looked like a shy young woman again.

“Can you do real damage with the light?” Lady Justice asked.

“I can focus enough as a laser beam to cut through a steel I-beam, but it takes a while unless I have a really bright source of light to use.” She was still mostly hiding behind her hair.

Witchcraft let her stylus drop onto the table, waved her hands and a small block of metal appeared on the floor.

“Demonstrate, please,” Computrix ordered.

Lumineera concentrated for a moment, the lights dimmed again and a beam of light came from her hand. Felicia had to turn her head because it was like looking at an arc-welder without darkened goggles.

Witchcraft made sunglasses appear over her face and Lady Justice’s, but Computrix merely watched with their expressionless black eyes.

Less than a minute later, there was a clank and when Felicia looked back, the slab was neatly cut in two, with the edges still glowing white-hot.

“Very good,” Witchcraft said. “We’ll be in touch.”

Lumineera nodded, then walked quickly out of the room, leaving only Felicia with the Angels.

Witchcraft made the two hot pieces of metal disappear.

“Next.”

Felicia stood and moved to the center of the room, conscious of how she looked: just an ordinary young woman in jeans, a Harry Potter T-shirt, Cons and glasses. She knew she looked younger than her twenty-five years. She also knew she was far, far, from ordinary.

Witchcraft turned her focus to her. Felicia swore she could actually feel Computrix’s gaze on her, too. Lady Justice merely looked on impassively.

“Name?”

“Felicia Felix, but some people call me Lucky Clover,” Felicia made eye contact with each of the Angels.

“Powers?” Computrix demanded.

“I can control people’s luck, either making them lucky or unlucky. I can transfer luck from one person to another.” She did not; however, tell them she could also split her mind into multiple parts, or that she was the daughter of Dr Eugenica and SirRebral.

“Luck does not exist,” Computrix said. “There is no such thing as random.”

“That is not true at all,” Felicia said. “Radioactive decay is predictable, but when an individual particle will decay is random. Wave-form collapse has probabilities, but they are just that; probabilities, and they do randomly happen based on those probabilities.”

Witchcraft and Lady Justice turned to Computrix.

“Are you saying that you can shift the quantum possibilities?” Computrix sounded doubtful, a trick of the voice they must have learned recently.

“That is exactly what I’m saying.” Felicia held up her hands. “I don’t know exactly how it works, but I can demonstrate it.”

“Go ahead,” Computrix said.

“While I’ve been sitting here waiting, I’ve been draining luck from Witchcraft and transferring it to you.” Felicia pointed at Computrix.

Computrix shut their eyes briefly and then reopened them.“You are certain? I do not feel different and my diagnostics do not show any interference.”

“I am sure; I wasn’t sure if I could before getting here, but I can...I guess ‘feel’ would be the best word for the transfer, and you definitely have some quality that I can transfer luck to that I can’t do with a mere machine.”

Felicia pulled a tablet out of her pocket and turned it on.

“I have encrypted the password to my GreetMe page with 128 bit encryption that would take approximately 2 times 10 to the 12th power years to crack with a brute force attack.”

She looked at Computrix.

Computrix nodded.

“A very close approximation,” they said. “I assume you would like me to brute force this password?”

“Yes, please.” Felicia started to walk to the table where Computrix sat, but Computrix waved her off.

“Please turn on your bluetooth and I will do it remotely.”

While Felicia did just that, she said, “I would like you to start with a random--”

Computrix started to object, but Felicia spoke over them.

“Okay, pseudo-random seed.”

Computrix closed their eyes again and Felicia increased the flow of luck from Witchcraft to Computrix. She transferred it as fast as she could and soon Witchcraft was nearly drained of luck.

“I---” Computrix started to say, but Witchcraft’s chair snapped, she dropped her tablet and it shattered on the edge of the table. The stylus fell suddenly from where it had been writing on its own on the tablet and stuck in the chain of Lady Justice’s scales, causing them to tip wildly for a second before she stilled them. While they were swinging, her head became a crocodile’s head, then reverted back to a human one when she stopped the scales.

“I have cracked it.” Computrix said as Witchcraft tried to stand, slipped on a piece of the tablet’s broken screen and fell heavily back to the floor.

Lady Justice helped Witchcraft back to a chair.

“It took me two minutes, forty-three point three two five seconds,” Computrix said. “Impressive.”

“How did you choose the seed you started from?” Felicia asked.

“I based it on my internal chronometer translated into hex then back into alphanumeric, based on an Enigma pattern that was encoded on the date of my creation in 1940.”

“How did you decide on that particular seed, though?” Felicia pushed the issue.

“I...It just seemed right,” Computrix’s voice had a doubt to it that Felicia had never heard before when they had spoken on television.

“Intriguing. Have you always been able to control this luck? Can you increase it only to a set amount? Does it work at a distance? Over video?” Computrix was going to keep asking questions, but Felicia jumped in.

“I can’t increase or decrease my own luck. I can do it over a distance, but it is not as effective; my assumption based on my qualitative observations is that it varies inversely to the distance between me and my target squared; both ways if I’m transferring it and not merely removing it and dissipating it. It seems to be a positive quality and to increase someone’s bad luck, I merely have to remove their good luck. I have to be able to see my target or both targets, but I can do it over video if I know where they are.”

She paused. Computrix started to speak, but Felicia continued.

“It can only go to a certain point then there are diminishing returns and it seems to dissipate into the ‘aether’.”

Computrix frowned at the word ‘aether.’

“Yes, I know, there is no aether, but it does decay somehow. It does not affect machines, as I said. I also can’t seem to affect my parents with it, but I don’t know why not.” She meant her real parents, not her adopted parents. She had tried over a live feed she had hacked from the black site prison they had been renditioned to and it hadn’t worked. Soon after, they died in Meteorite’s failed escape.

“Please return to your seat while we deliberate.” Lady Justice stood and helped Witchcraft to stand.

“Also, return my luck,” Witchcraft demanded.

“Already in process,” Felicia said. “I would estimate that you are at around fifty percent of normal now and will be back to eighty or so percent before I leave; Computrix used quite a bit of it.”

Witchcraft’s face darkened and Felicia held up her hands.

“Don’t worry, it will refill completely by tomorrow morning, I promise.”

Felicia sat back down on one of the chairs she had been waiting in before the audition. The Angels sat behind the table and discussed her in whispers, with the occasional hard look from Witchcraft.

After a few minutes, they called her forward.

She stood in front of the table.

“I must ask; what do you do for a living?” Computrix asked.

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you,” Felicia said smiling. “Couldn’t see my files, could you?”

Computrix’s eyes narrowed in a very good approximation of a human.

“No, I could not.” They steepled their long, grey fingers.

“I estimate a ninety-five percent chance that you work for the CIA or NSA, a three percent chance that you are a plant from the League of Malice, a one percent chance that you are an alien/fey/other unknown and/or mischievous creature and a variety of other probabilities that each are less than one percent. Accordingly, we would like to offer you a probationary acceptance to the All-American Angels as a support hero.”

Felicia smiled. She hadn’t expected to succeed on the first try, and even making the support hero team was an amazing accomplishment; only three others had done it on the first try. This would speed up her timetable.

“We would like you to be on-call at our HQ, so that you may…” they paused.

“Fill us with luck,” Lady Justice said, smiling.

Act 2

Since joining the Angels, Felicia had assisted on ten missions and they all went well. They were rated almost as highly in the public opinion polls as the Second-City Rectifiers, and they had Ultra on their team. The Angels had all agreed with Felicia that it would be best if she wasn’t seen in public with them and that the reason for their latest accomplishments would stay a secret. They had publicly added Plumbia to the team at the same time as Felicia and Plumbia was making her mark as well.

Felicia watched Dark Zombie on the monitor from his prison cell located in the basement of Angel HQ. She could feel Dark Zombie’s luck seeping out, out, out into the aether to Lady Justice, who she was watching on another monitor.

Lady Justice had Drunken Bastard fully in the power of her scales and Felicia knew he was reliving his crimes and judging himself. She’d had to endure Lady Justice doing this to her, and it was quite painful, even when your crimes were minor like Felicia’s had been. She relived sucking all the luck out of her ex-girlfriend during the Homecoming game and watching her tumble from the top of the cheerleader’s pyramid where she hit the ground with a sickening crunch. She relived using her power on the neighbor’s dog after it had bitten her sister and the way it ran into traffic.

Felicia let these relatively minor incidents be judged and hid the rest in the eighth partition at the back of her mind. Lady Justice never saw Felicia manipulating the luck of the NSA background checker who was vetting her employment application or the way that Felicia had drained all the luck from the NSA cryptanalyst who had the job in the SuperVillain cryptanalysis lab before her.

On the monitor, Sharkey rose up just behind Lady Justice to bite her head off, but then suddenly an I-beam fell off the crane that had been lifting it and flattened him. Lady Justice didn’t even blink, and she kept her focus on the now-blubbering Drunken Bastard.

Felicia could hear him over Lady Justice’s feed.

_“I’m sorry, Charlene. I’m sorry, Charlene, I was drunk. I was stupid. Forgive me!”_

He screamed in pain and frustration.

Sharkey pushed the I-Beam off him and then the dump truck he was next to had its back gate fail. A rain of red dust enveloped him as it dropped its load on him like literally six tons of bricks. Felicia smiled. It wouldn’t kill Sharkey, he was too tough, but it would put him out of the fight.

She turned to Computrix’s monitor, but they didn’t need any help in their fight with Slamdance. Whatever attack Slamdance tried to use, Computrix blocked and then counter-attacked. They were both so fast, it was a blur, but the computer readout made it clear that Computrix was fine and Slamdance was rapidly tiring.

Felicia watched Plumbia pounding the crap out of Steelhead. He was made of harder metal, but his attacks just sank into Plumbia’s soft lead body without hurting her. Witchcraft was somewhere nearby, but invisible; Felicia could tell by the glowing bands that were beginning to tighten around Steelhead’s arms and legs.

She turned back to Lady Justice like she had been doing for the last three months and admired her as she reduced Drunken Bastard to unconsciousness and then moved on to the now restrained Steelhead. He soon fell into her power too and just about the time he went under, Computrix finished off Slamdance with a powerful axe-kick. Slamdance toppled, her shoulder dislocated.

The FBI’s super-villain transport unit arrived soon afterward and took the Destroyers into custody. Computrix double-checked all of their meta-restraints and made sure Steelhead was actually out before they let the FBI transport the villains away.

The Angels all gathered in a circle and Witchcraft teleported them back to HQ. Felicia heard the displacement of the air in the conference room and went to greet them.

Lady Justice met her just as Felicia opened the door from the control room to the conference room.

“Thank you,” Lady Justice told her and hugged Felicia tightly. Felicia’s heart began beating faster. She hadn’t expected to feel anything for any of the Angels, but something about Lady Justice made her...long for...companionship? Sex? Love?She wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted. This was not part of the plan.

“I...You’re welcome,” she said in a strained voice as Lady Justice tightened her grip.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lady Justice said as she released Felicia.

“No, it’s fine, really. Glad it helped out. Sharkey’s one tough bastard, huh?”

Lady Justice grinned. “And Drunken Bastard wouldn’t be so bad if he could dry out, but he stays drunk even when there’s no booze around.”

Felicia nodded. She’d read his file.

“I’m going to go shower. Want to wait for me and then we can talk after?” Lady Justice asked, her voice sounding somehow confident to Felicia.

Felicia nodded and followed Lady Justice to her quarters. She had been there only once before, when Lady Justice had asked her to help Computrix with a bug sweep. They’d been afraid that the TechnoBabbles had infiltrated HQ somehow, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Computrix seemed surprised at Felicia’s knowledge of surveillance and also Felicia’s capabilities in counter-surveillance, but Felicia thought it was likely an act on their part as they had to have figured out Felicia’s capabilities by now. Or maybe, Felicia had thought, Computrix wasn’t the super-computing android she was made out to be.

As they went through the conference room where Plumbia was talking loudly with Witchcraft and Computrix, Felicia felt a gaze on her and turned her head. Computrix met her eyes for just a second before turning her face back to Plumbia.

The walk to Lady Justice’s quarters passed quietly, Felicia concentrating on not staring at Lady Justice’s backside as she walked behind her. Lady Justice partially turned her head and noticed. Felicia blushed. Lady Justice laughed and turned back around.

Lady Justice opened the door to her quarters and let Felicia inside, then came in and locked the door.

“It’s okay to look; do you like what you see?” Lady Justice asked as she set her scales down on a plinth in the center of the room. They glowed red-gold briefly then looked just like old-fashioned scales sitting there.

“I--What?” Felicia asked.

Lady Justice undid her hair ribbon and her dark black hair fell to her waist.. She put the hair ribbon over her eyes like a blindfold.

“You must know that even blindfolded, Lady Justice sees all.” She laughed and threw the blindfold/hair ribbon on the couch, then she flopped on it heavily and patted the cushion next to her.

Felicia gulped and sat.

Lady Justice leaned in and suddenly she was close, her lips were close, her hair was close, and her lashes were oh so long. Felicia shouldn’t; but she wanted to.

Then her lips were on Felicia’s and they became lost in the kiss.

After what seemed like minutes, but must have only been seconds, Lady Justice pulled back.

“I thought I might have to make the first move. Before you decide, you need to know what I am.”

“You’re Ammit,” Felicia said, “The Devourer of the Dead, who commits the unworthy to eternal fire.”

“I am. But I am also what remains of Anubis and Ma’at. I am more than one being in this body.” She sighed.

“This is my true form.”

She changed. The crocodile head that Felicia had briefly seen in her tryout was there, but so also was a jackal head superimposed with it. She had both a human body, but also a lion’s and a hippo’s body. They all overlapped and morphed together.

“I am all this,” Lady Justice said. “But I am also this.”

She changed again, back to herself, she wasn't outwardly bigger, but she had more...presence . She looked like herself again, but with a heavy black blindfold over her eyes. The scales disappeared from the plinth and reappeared in her hands.

When she spoke, her voice carried weight.

“I am Justice. I was born into this world long ago. I have been Justice as Vengeance; I have been Justice as Truth; I have been Justice as Mercy.” She snapped her fingers, the blindfold disappeared, the scales went back to the plinth and Lady Justice sat there, looking small.

“I change with the times and each rebirth.” She hugged herself.

“Can you handle all that?” she asked.

“I can try,” Felicia said and leaned in for another kiss.

* * *

Two years later, Computrix addressed the Angels in the conference room.

“I am concerned that the League of Malice has been too quiet lately. I propose we strike first. Ultra has information on that front.”

Ultra was also there from Second City Rectifiers. Felicia eyed him; if he figured it out too soon, then her plan would be for nothing.

Computrix sat and Ultra stood. His voice was dark mahogany sliding over oiled leather.

“We have uncovered the lair of the League of Malice and would like to perform a coordinated strike on it with the All-American Angels.”

“We will be the primary force, and the Angels will be the infiltrators. While we engage the League from outside, Lady Justice, Computrix and Plumbia would go in the side entrance, corrupt L’ordinateur’s computers and then capture him. Without him quarterbacking, it should be an easy mop-up on the rest of the League.”

Felicia thought he sounded over-confident. But then he had every right to be; he was nigh-indestructible.

He pulled up a hologrammatic plan of the League's base and they all hashed out the plan together.

"Excuse me," Felicia interrupted.

Ultra turned his blue glowing eyes to her and from the other side of the table Computrix also stared at her coldly.

"Yes?" Ultra asked.

Felicia met Computrix's glare.

"What do you calculate your odds of corrupting L'Ordinateur's computers at in the time Ultra's allotted for it?"

Computrix closed their eyes for a second.

"Seventy-three percent with an error range of plus or minus five percent," they replied.

"And what would those odds increase to with my assistance on the scene?"

Computrix recalculated.

"Ninety-two percent with an error range of plus or minus two percent."

Ultra turned his full attention to Felicia. She felt very small suddenly.

“I haven’t met you until today,” he told her, his voice penetrating directly to her brain. She partitioned her mind into eight parts and it retreated.

He noticed somehow that she had done something and redoubled the power in his voice.

“What do you do for the Angels?”

“I am the secondary computer expert, the tactical coordinator, and…” she looked to Computrix who nodded.

“And, I also push good luck to the team by removing it from others.” His blue glowing eyes stared through her.

“You literally control luck?” he asked.

She nodded.

“This is the missing piece in why your team has become so much more effective, isn’t it?” he demanded of Computrix.

“She is the biggest change, yes, but it is not solely her powers that have made the difference. She also has one of the most amazing intellects I have seen in a human, and she runs the team effectively from the comms.”

“Why don’t you go into the field more?” he asked Felicia.

“I’m just a human. One good hit from almost any super and I’d be dead. I’m a liability in the field as I would distract the team trying to protect me.”

Lady Justice looked down at her hands. Computrix saw, but Felicia didn’t think Ultra did.

“Why then, would you want to go on this mission?” he asked.

“You heard Computrix, it increases our odds by twenty percent and reduces the error rate. It’s a risk I’ll have to take eventually. Also, I can control the flow of luck much better in person.”

“Can you keep me invisible or do something else to protect me?” she asked Witchcraft.

“I could keep you invisible, but it takes a fair bit of concentration. I don’t think I could do it and complete my other mission parts.”

“What about Robotrice’s mech-suit? We have that in storage and she was about the same size as Felicia,” Lady Justice chimed in.

“That would make a difference,” Computrix said. Felicia felt she could see the numbers running behind their eyes.

“We could also have Plumbia stay near Felicia as a bodyguard,” Lady Justice said.

Computrix nodded. “But then we have to give Plumbia’s part to someone else; one of the reserves, perhaps?”

“You would trust this to a reserve?” Ultra demanded.

“I think Lumineera could get us through the doors almost as fast as Plumbia?” Witchcraft asked.

Computrix closed their eyes and this time Felicia definitely saw the eyelids moving, almost like REM sleep in a human.

They opened them a second later. “Yes, Lumineera can perform the task adequately.”

Felicia grinned. She’d been with the team for two years and this would be the first time she was in the field. Also, this might be the time to finally get rid of Computrix; they were always the one mostly likely to figure out what Felicia was up to.

After the meeting, Lady Justice caught up with her.

“You should go tailor Robotrice’s mech-suit to you now, so you can get used to it by the time of the op.”

“Good idea, come with?” Felicia asked.

Lady Justice shook her head. “Sorry, I’ve got to visit an old friend in Cairo tonight.”

They kissed their goodbyes and Felicia went down to the storage lockers to get Robotrice’s suit.

* * *

Felicia knew the op wasn’t running correctly when there were more soldiers on the ground than predicted. Plumbia protected her from the bullets and mopped the soldiers up when their weapons all jammed at the same time. Felicia saw the other groups were similarly delayed by human minions. It was nothing they couldn’t handle, but it was starting to throw off the timetable.

She watched the HUDs inside the mechsuit’s helmet, keeping an eye on all the conflicts at once. She’d already partitioned her brain into sixteen parts and would have a full-scale migraine later, but for now it was worth it since she could multi-task; keeping aware of her surroundings and controlling luck flow for four or five people at once; six if she pushed it and didn’t care about lost luck transmission packets.

She kept two of her mind-partitions on Lady Justice’s display and also was transmitting extra luck to her from the unconscious soldiers.

One of the screens blinked red and she paid more attention to it. Angelfire from the Rectifiers had been taken down by Demonspawn from the League and forced to battle on the ground where his wings were more a hindrance than a help. Demonspawn threw bolts of darkness at Angelfire, but he danced around them.

A flaming sword appeared in Angelfire’s hands and he met the next bolts directly with it. They splattered and fell to the ground where they smoldered. Angelfire leapt and struck at Demonspawn with his blade, but Demonspawn met it with a black blade of his own. Felicia ran as she followed Plumbia through the jungle to the side door. Computrix and Lumineera were still paralleling them and Lady Justice and Witchcraft trailed behind them in reserve, ready to teleport in when it was clear.

The Rectifiers were holding up their end of the bargain and keeping the League distracted with their frontal assault. Ultra showed up to help Angelfire and while Demonspawn was distracted by Ultra’s attack, Angelfire smote him. Demonspawn disappeared in a greasy puff of black smoke.

“He’ll be back, but not for 666 days,” Angelfire told Ultra.

Ultra nodded, picked up Angelfire and flew off with him to the next conflict.

Plumbia had cleared the way and she and Felicia reached the side door. Felicia popped the decoder device over the keypad and started to decrypt the passcode. The plan was that whoever got to the door first would try to open it their way and if that didn’t work, Lumineera would just laser through it.

Felicia ran the program over the keypad, but also looked at it to see if any of the keys showed obvious wear; even knowing one or two of the numbers in the passcode would speed the process quite a bit. She thought the two and four looked slightly more worn, so she put those in the device and just as Computrix and Lumineera arrived, the door opened.

A fusillade of gunfire came through the newly opened door. A bullet ricocheted off a wall and clipped Felicia on the side of her helmet. It didn’t penetrate the mech-suit, but it snapped her head back painfully.

Lumineera put up a shield of light in front of herself and got spattered lightly by some melted bullets, but they couldn’t pass her kevlar suit. Computrix avoided the bullets with speed that Felicia still couldn’t believe even though she’d seen it before. Plumbia merely waded into the soldiers and began to beat them relentlessly as their bullets just sank into her soft lead flesh.

Plumbia had just reached the leader barking orders at the back when he pushed a red button on his suit. All of the bullets embedded in Plumbia exploded and bits of lead and other body parts flew past Felicia. A leaden hand fell at Felicia’s feet.

Plumbia’s explosion killed most of the soldiers and before Computrix could stop her, Lumineera had lasered through the heads of the rest.

“We do not kill!” Computrix shouted at Lumineera as they ran through the door into the hallway. Felicia stared in shock at Plumbia’s smoldering corpse before Witchcraft and Lady Justice appeared suddenly in front of her with a whoosh of displaced air.

“I didn’t give her enough luck,” Felicia said quietly into her comm.

“I don’t think any amount of luck could have prevented that trap,” Computrix’s voice came through her earpiece.

Lady Justice’s hand squeezed Felicia’s shoulder. The haptic feedback in the suit made it feel like her hand was actually touching Felicia’s flesh and she shivered.

“Mourn later; we have to finish this, okay?” Lady Justice’s voice was soft.

Felicia gulped and nodded. She concentrated briefly again and began searching for luck to remove, but Lumineera and the explosion had killed all the enemies close enough to make a difference.

Felicia followed behind Witchcraft and Lady Justice, and they trailed just behind Lumineera and Computrix in the vanguard. The schematics for the League of Malice’s base that the Rectifiers had uncovered appeared to be accurate and soon they were in L’ordinateur’s server room.

Computrix immediately jacked into the servers and began to process the corrupting virus she had been carrying. Lumineera guarded one door and Lady Justice and Witchcraft guarded the other. Felicia also plugged her tablet into the servers to help Computrix. She’d found out that Computrix wasn’t better at this, merely faster.

Her tablet beeped, she looked at it. It glowed red around the edge.

“Disengage!” she yelled at Computrix, but it was too late. Computrix began to shake uncontrollably as viruses from L’ordinateur tried to penetrate her firewalls. It had all been a massive trap. Felicia desperately flailed at her tablet; as she pretended to be trying to help Computrix. Computrix would either fight the viruses off on her own, or she would die; or worse, be taken over. Either way, this would be the time to get rid of Computrix and make it look like it was L’ordinateur’s doing. If she was lucky, then L’ordinateur would be nearby, too.

Felicia began unplugging the servers from each other and their power sources.

The cooling fans reversed suddenly and the doors closed.

“What’s happening?” Witchcraft asked.

“L’ordinateur is pulling all the air out of the room,” Felcia said. “It was all a trap.”

“Yes, it is,” L’ordinateur’s voice came from Computrix’s mouth. They struggled to stand. Witchcraft began to create air in the room, but it was being sucked out faster than she could replace it. Lumineera had just started to cut through one of the doors when the lights went out. They could all still see, but Lumineera now had no ambient light to draw from. Felicia turned on the spotlights on the mechsuit, and as Lumineera started to cut through the door again, Felicia saw the battery meter on the suit dropping precipitously.

Felicia tried to find someone...anyone to drain luck from and give to her team, but there was no one.

“Luck is no replacement for a good plan,” L’ordinateur said through Computrix. They managed to stand and tried to grab Felicia who danced back. Computrix was still wobbly, but if L’ordinateur gained full control of her, then they’d all be in trouble. It was time, but she had to make it look good.

Lady Justice met the gaze of Computrix and tried to pull L’ordinateur into the power of her scales of Justice, but it didn’t seem to be working.

“That won’t work on me, I’m afraid,” L’ordinateur said. “I have no remorse or guilt for anything I’ve ever done. Human emotions are a curse. It’s a shame my child here never understood that. Her emotions and care for you all will be her undoing, but now that I have control of her body, she can be reset.”

Felicia wondered briefly why L’ordinateur referred to Computrix as ‘she’ instead of ‘they,’ but dismissed it as unimportant.

Computrix lunged suddenly and grabbed Lady Justice’s scales. They ripped them out of Lady Justice’s hands and flung them across the room.

Felicia opened a compartment on the mechsuit.

“Now let’s see if a god can die,” L’ordinateur/Computrix said. They gripped Lady Justice’s head in both hands and twisted just as Felicia reached into the compartment.

A loud snap filled the chamber and Lady Justice fell to the ground.

“You’re next,” Computrix said to Felicia and took a step toward her. A blast of light from Lumineera stopped them briefly and Felicia pushed a button on the device she’d pulled out.

Nothing happened outwardly, but Computrix suddenly fell to the ground, limp. The fans stopped, the servers stopped, the mechsuit shut down and the lights on it slowly faded to glowing filaments as they cooled. The mechsuit opened in failsafe mode to let Felicia out.

“What was that?” Witchcraft asked.

“EMP bomb,” Felicia said. “All the electronics within about 2 miles will be out now. If L’ordinateur was in that range, then he’s dead.” She didn’t think he was, but she hoped.

“You killed Computrix?” Lumineera’s voice squeaked.

“No, L’ordinateur killed them, I merely killed their animated corpse.” Felicia sat heavily. The air was still thin.

Witchcraft kept filling the room with air and when they could breathe easier, she created a small miniature sun that Lumineera used to finish cutting through the door. Felicia went to Lady Justice’s body and cradled her head in her lap.

“She can’t die like that,” Witchcraft told Felicia. “She’ll be back, but it will be in a slightly different incarnation than before. We need to keep her scales for her, she’ll want them.”

Lumineera finally got through the door and they walked wearily out of the base. Felicia carried the scales.

Ultra met them at the side door.

“All went to plan then?” he asked, but his eyes were on Lady Justice’s scales.

“We lost Plumbia and Lady Justice,” Felicia said.

“But we also captured all of the League except L’ordinateur, who doesn’t seem to be here.” Ultra’s smug voice blanketed Felicia.

“You knew this was a trap?” she asked him.

“Of course not.” The lie was smooth, but this was part of Felicia’s training. He was lying. They had been the distraction; he’d used them as a fucking distraction and now Lady Justice was dead; Plumbia was dead; and he’d taken another person she loved from her. At least she had gotten rid of Computrix, but it wasn’t worth the loss of Lady Justice.

Time to move the plan forward, she thought in fifteen of the sixteen partitions of her mind.

Act 3

Lady Justice appeared at her own funeral. Her new incarnation reminded Felicia unsettlingly of Computrix. She was cold and emotionless as she judged now and whatever she and Felicia had was gone. She wasn’t the same person that Felicia had loved.

When she got back to HQ, Felicia left a note on her dresser and left. Witchcraft or Lumineera would find it soon.

Felicia went home, made some tea and ate a stale sandwich, then she curled up on the couch and cried until she fell asleep. When she woke up in the early hours, she sighed, stood up, showered and then sat in front of her laptop.

While it booted, she opened her secure desk drawer and removed Computrix’s head. She attached a high-speed cable of her own making to the port in the back of Computrix’s neck that she’d rebuilt.

Humming tunelessly, she opened apps on her laptop and then connected the cable to it. Soon she confirmed what she’d thought. There was nothing of Computrix left after the virus and the EMP bomb, but there were small traces of L’ordinateur.

She ran backtracing protocols on the virus, looking for signatures of L’ordinateur, software he’d used, servers he’d hacked or VPNs he’d bounced data from. The NSA programs she used had been developed by programmers that she’d pumped luck into, and she’d also used ten parts of her partitioned brain in checking them for bugs and errors afterward.

She was happy that Computrix was finally out of the way, as they would likely have been able to stop Felicia from what she was about to attempt.

She backtraced L’ordinateur as far as she could and put a message out into one of the servers she’d found on a VPN. He might have thought his VPN was untraceable, but she’d just showed him it wasn’t.

She only had to wait a few seconds when a message pinged back.

_Clever girl. You knew I wasn’t dead._

_Need to meet you, either IRL or virtual; don’t care._

_Why would I agree to that?_

_I have something you need._

_Yes?_

_5x10^23 qubits of processing power._

_Lies._

_I work with the NSA and can get you access to the SCSC._

_The Super-Conducting Super-Computer is a rumor. This is a trap._

_Can prove it. Give me a 256 bit protected password and I’ll brute force it in seconds._

_Fine._

A few seconds later a link appeared. Felicia checked it every way she knew for viruses and traps and didn’t find any.

 _Starting now_ , she typed back.

She connected her laptop through the backdor of the Super-Conducting Super-Computer that she’d helped work on and then used a code-cracking app she’d developed on his password. Forty-three seconds later, she’d broke it.

She logged into a virtual chatroom and then they worked out the rest of the plan to capture or kill Ultra together. L’ordinateur never knew it was all a lie.

* * *

The amplifier helmet wasn’t comfortable, but that hadn’t been in Psycho’s mind when he’d made it. Felicia wiggled in the reclined seat and tried to relieve pressure from her neck. It may not have been comfortable, but it did its job. With Psycho pumped full of luck, he’d made breakthrough after breakthrough on his mind amplifiers and he’d been able to make what had always eluded him: an amplifier for any meta-human’s natural powers. He’d used it first to take over both the president of the U.S and then the Russian president.

The Rectifiers knew something was up and they’d stepped up their attacks on the League, but bad luck kept happening to them. Angelfire had been dragged to Hell when Lucifer himself had accidently been summoned by some school-girls and ClawBomb had come down with some weird virus when he’d bitten Chupacabra. Only Ultra seemed to not be having bad luck. He’d figured out that Felicia had joined the League, but he couldn’t find her; with both her and L’ordinateur covering their cyber-tracks, they were virtually invisible.

Felicia concentrated on all the remaining members of the Rectifiers, pulling their luck out and putting it into Ultra. Tomorrow, the big test would happen. She unplugged and went to bed and slept the best she had since before her parents died; even better than she had in Lady Justice’s arms.

In her dreams, Lady Justice had her trapped in the power of her scales, but since she didn’t feel guilty about what she had done, she wasn’t affected. She awakened even more sure of what she was doing.

She started to undress to shower, then decided it didn’t make a difference. Today, it ended one way or the other. She left, still in her Ravenclaw pajamas.

She went to the PsychoChamber and attached the helmet. She adjusted all the dials to 11 then she started sucking luck out of everyone that she could; billions of people. The gauges pegged into the red-line immediately and a tinny computer voice spoke in her ear.

“Warning! 6.5 billion people exceeds safety parameters! Override to continue!”

“Override code Lucky Clover 654xYZ,” Felicia said, then she partitioned her brain into thirty-two parts. She’d only done it once before, and it had put her in a coma for a month afterward, but it just didn’t matter.

She kept twenty of the partitions focused on draining luck from everyone else and pushing it to Ultra. There was a ton of leakage, but it wouldn’t make a difference in the long run either.

“Lucky Clover,” L’ordinateur said into her earpiece. “What are you doing? This is not what we agreed.”

“It isn’t, is it?” she said simply.

The thirty-first partition of her brain pushed a button on her tablet and the Dedicated Denial of Service automated attack she’d put in place started happening to L’ordinateur.

“What?” his voice crackled out of her ear.

He was now being bombarded with requests from millions of slave computers that Felicia had infected. It wouldn’t keep him long, but it would be long enough.

The thirty-second partition noticed Psycho come through the door.

“What are you doing?” he asked. He tried to walk across to the main console, but tripped on a mess of wires.

“Destroying the world,” she said emotionlessly.

Psycho tried to invade her mind, but the partitions confused him for a second, then she pushed back and split his mind into sixty-four parts.

He screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and screamed. He tried to stand, fell, then crawled away still screaming.

She turned all but five partitions of her mind to the luck draining again. The others entered codes on her tablets.

“Launches confirmed.” the computer voice said.

She kept draining luck. It would take about thirty minutes for the first missiles to reach the U.S and Russia, but reports were already in from the Middle-East and India and Pakistan.

News reports started to go crazy. NORAD scrambled, but it was too late. Secret SDI satellites from the U.S. and Russia shot down some of the missiles, but there were just too many.

“What have you done?” L’ordinateur’s voice came

“What needed to be done,” she replied.

“You won’t,” he said, then there was a crackling and his line went dead. Wherever he had actually been in the world must have been hit.

Felicia took the helmet off, sat up and left the League’s bunker. When she got to ground level and stepped out of the elevator, she could see missile contrails in the distance.

She sat down and waited. She kept her luck sense extended. She could feel Ultra getting closer. It was only minutes before he got there.

He landed and lifted her effortlessly until her face was in front of hers.

“What did you do?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? It’s fucking obvious. I launched nuclear armageddon.”

He shook her so violently she almost passed out. Twenty-four of her mental partitions blanked out.

“Why?”

“I did it for you.” She kept pushing all the remaining luck the people in the world had into him. The luck kept sputtering out as millions or billions of people died, but there was still some and Ultra was getting it all.

“You put my parents in prison and they died there. I wasn’t able to help them. You let the Angels be shock-troops for you. You knew it was a trap and you sent us anyway. You let Lady Justice die.”

He shook her some more and this time she did pass out. When she woke she was leaning against a tree and he was looming over her. Her head ached and only one partition was still working correctly.

“You’re killing everyone just for revenge?”

She sighed and shook her head. “No, not just revenge, and not everyone will die. The human race is pretty resilient; they’ll have a bad time of it for a while, but it will survive, just, you know, not in North America or Europe or Asia for a few millennia.”

“Who were your parents?” he asked. He sat down and put his hand in his hands.

“Dr Eugenica and SirRebral,” she answered.

“I remember you; you were just a baby when we fostered you. How did you find out?” His eyes glowed even bluer.

“I’ve always known I was special. I couldn’t just control luck, I could split my mind into multiple parts and multi-task on so much.”

She sighed again.

“Soon, it will be over, and Lady Justice in her form of Anubis will come for my soul. It will be judged by Ma’at and will be heavier than a feather and then Ammit will devour me and I’ll be part of her forever. And I’ll see my parents again.”

She met his gaze.

“You are the luckiest being on the earth and you avoided all the destruction, even if you couldn’t prevent it. You have so much luck that you’ll live for thousands of years on this shattered world. If you aren’t actually immortal, it will feel like it. Enjoy your life; I’ll enjoy my death.”

A rumbling of rocket engines came and missiles started to appear in the sky. Ultra flew off to intercept them and managed to get most of them.

But it only takes one and as L’ordinatuer had said, luck is no replacement for a good plan.

The missile detonated in an airburst 500 feet over the base and Felicia met Ma’at in a nuclear fireball.


End file.
